DANBURY — Every day Mike Greene drives more than 60 miles to grocery stores across Danbury to collect as much as 1,700 pounds of fresh food donations for local pantries.

Affectionately known as the “Man in a Van,” the dedicated volunteer has single-handedly delivered almost 140,000 pounds of produce, meat and baked goods in just three months for the Danbury Food Collaborative.

“It can be a little daunting to look at a whole skid filled with boxes or food, but, hey, it’s exercise,” he said after a four-hour delivery run this week. “I can’t afford the gym, so this is my personal trainer.”

Now he and the collaborative, a United Way of Western Connecticut program that coordinates 18 nonprofits to help feed needy Danbury families, have launched a campaign to raise $7,000 to help pay a part-time driver to help complete the deliveries each day and ensure the fresh food doesn’t go to waste.

Greene stepped up to make the delivery runs late last year after the Connecticut Food Bank could no longer fund a driver to come to Danbury from its headquarters in Wallingford, said Caroline LaFleur, the United Way’s community impact coordinator in Danbury.

The timing could not have been worse.

The food bank and Danbury Food Collaborative had just struck a plan with BJ’s Wholesale stores to make regular pick ups, said Greene, who helped coordinate the Interfaith AIDS Ministry of Greater Danbury and its pantry for 11 years. Without a driver, Greene knew that food and the donations at other stores like Costco and ShopRite would be left to go to waste and the stores might stop participating.

So Greene volunteered to make the rounds himself and the food bank let him use one of its vans.

“It really is a heroic effort,” LaFleur said. “It’s a huge project and he’s feeding so many people.”

Now Greene coordinates 27 pickups from a slew of stores each week, matching every day’s goods with the operations that are open each day, including Community Action Agency of Western Connecticut, Jericho Partnership, Victory Christian Center and the Bethel Community Food Pantry.

What had cost almost $1,500 per week for the food bank to do from afar, Greene believes the collaborative can do locally for as little as $275 per week.

That’s just 3 cents-per-pound, even with a paid driver helping, he said.

“For what we can do with the level of cost, we give an amazing amount of food back to Danbury,” Greene said. “So that’s the goal, to keep the food in Danbury and get it to all of those in need the best we can.”

If the United Way can raise enough money to hire a driver, it could give Green a much-deserved break, LaFleur said.

But Greene disagrees. Instead, it would really just give him time to work on the collaborative’s and United Way’s next ambitious project: A central food bank facility with refrigerators and space to collect donations.

The extra room and refrigeration would make it far easier to collect more food and keep it fresher longer and the need exists in Danbury, Greene and LaFleur said.

“The produce we collect is amazing and that’s the best food for people to eat,” Greene said. “That’s the healthiest, but it’s one of the most expensive to buy in the grocery store, sadly.

“A lot of families decide, ‘Do I put chicken on the table or do I put some fresh vegetables on the table?’” he added. “So this is a great way to help them put healthy produce on the table for their family when they couldn’t otherwise.”